UNCANNY X-MEN #164: Binary Star!

Starring Binary!

Originally Published December 1982

When we last left off, the X-Men were facing certain death at the hands of the Brood, who were set to fire on their mostly-defenseless space-yacht as they escaped the clutches of Broodworld once and for all...

Also, the Brood fighter jets are these crazy space sharks!

Only, the Brood actually don't want to kill the X-Men, for reasons we know all to well - namely, that each of the X-Men is carrying a Brood Queen egg inside of them and they are nearly ready to hatch and transform our merry mutants into foul, toothy beasts that mother an entire race of destruction.

Except for Wolverine, whose mutant healing powers have enabled him to kill the invasive species. He can die, for all the Brood care.

As noted, the X-Men are aboard Empress Lilandra's Imperial yacht - and as cool as that sounds, it is not a warship, and only has meagre means to protect itself. Still, it does possess space-guns like the Millennium Falcon, which Wolverine, Carol Danvers, and a very reluctant Colossus can use to launch some counter-fire.

Meanwhile Cyclops and Storm use their mutant powers to contribute to the escape - the yacht just happens to be outfitted with one of the kooky ruby quartz domes that Scott can use to fire his optic blasts out of just in case the need should arise, which is not only incredibly an specific "just in case," it doesn't even make sense with what the ruby quartz visor actually does (ie, hold back his optic blast - it's only his flicking catchphrase, for crying out loud. To fire the blast into space, he would actually have to stick his face out the window, but whatever, I guess we really aren't meant to be taking these comics quite so seriously.)

Storm, for her part, is alarmed to find that she is losing touch with her weather-summoning abilities, being that she is in space, far from the Earth that birthed and nourishes her. This causes her to lose control of her lightning and kill one of the Brood's space shark vessels, which she deems innocent, relative to the evil alien race that lobotomized it and co-opted its body for their own murdery purposes.

When the ship is hit, damaging the control elements of the warp drive, Kitty volunteers to suit up and repair it (using, of course, her advanced knowledge of Shi'ar craft gleaned from her time as a hostage.) Cyclops insists it's too dangerous, but Kitty counters by saying it's not too dangerous. Undoubtedly, any alien weapons flying through space will be easy enough to spot and moving slowly enough for her to phase and pass harmlessly through.

Kitty tinkers while the X-Men can do little to fend off the attack. Storm suffers a breakdown at the prospect of losing control of her powers, and Carol has a strange flare-up of her own.

As it happens, some flying shrapnel does injure Kitty, and as the Brood fighters surround the ship it looks like our heroes are done-for, until Carol becomes what would appear to be - but I'm no expert on the subject - a being of pure energy due to the genetic experimentations the Brood subjected her to, using the power of a nuclear sun to destroy all of their fighter shark ships in one fell swoop.

Man, don't tell Storm about this one.

The repairs are completed toute-de-suite, the team throws the ship into warp, and away-y-y they go.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the Mansion has been rebuilt - yes, already - and its sole occupants sit down for a nice dinner - Professor Charles Xavier, and the now thirteen-year-old Illyana Rasputin. The two have a conversation about how Xavier used his mutant powers to teach Illyana English while she slept, and whether she might be a mutant like Piotr, as she ominously hints that she can do... "things."

Why would anyone find that unsettling? Seems normal to me.

Xavier is very tactful in not bringing up the whole "What happened while you were abducted by an evil sorcerer for half your life?" question. Perhaps later for that.

Back in space, Carol debuts her new look:

Lilandra informs us that this is all well and good, but the reactor is now inert, they have lost power to life support systems and probably doomed. Luckily, they have someone in their midst who carries with them the infinite power of a star, and I don't mean Wolverine.

With the ship refuelled, the repairs continue. Carol reflects to Colossus that she now has the power of a star indeed, and can generate seemingly unlimited resources of light, heat, radiation, whatever she needs (but not guacamole, that would be extra.) Being that she is now tied into the primal fabric of the universe, she decides the Earth is no longer her home. Canonically, it simply cannot contain her greatness.

Inside the ship, something that doesn't concern Carol Danvers is occurring as Kitty has miraculously healed from her shrapnel wound. As Scott and Kurt ponder how this could be, Wolverine warns them that they might not want to know the terrible secret. Rather than tell them, and dispel their notion of living in a world where they are not fated to undergo a gruesome transformation into malevolent space-bugs, Wolverine skulks off.

Elsewhere, Storm is still in a state, anxious at her inability to corral her powers as well as she normally does. Eventually, she reaches a very strange conclusion...

Oh man, it's not Dracula's is it?

Upon determining this, she does the only sensible thing - hopping on a shuttlecraft and flying away.

Finally pressed into a corner, Wolverine reveals what he knows about the Brood egg implantation (explaining that Kitty healed so quickly because the Brood embryo within was protecting its host.) Carol, incensed and feeling her oats as well as the equivalent power of a fiery sun, declares war on all Broodkind.

Of course, she's a little rash, blasting a hole through the side of the ship as she makes her dramatic exit.

Come on, Carol! We just fixed this thing! You helped!

To be continued!

Further Thoughts:

The primary focus of this issue, which is otherwise another uninspiring "X-Men trapped on a broken-down spacecraft" story (a weirdly common trope), is to introduce Carol's transformation into the cosmic-powered force of nature known as Binary.

It's funny how, just as Carol was reaching her stride as a side-character in the X-Men's adventures - stripped of her Marvel-ous space powers and some of her identity, and forced to reckon with life as an ordinary (albeit overqualified) Joe, she finds herself bestowed with the limitless energy powers of the very cosmos? For me, it's a bit too quick of a reversion to the status quo, since the powers-that-be at Marvel seemed to work very hard to put Carol in a situation where she was no longer a going concern, to the point of putting her in that debacle of a story about Marcus the Time-Travelling Extradimensional Sexual Predator, and then giving Chris Claremont a chance to send Carol off in a way that actually had some dignity. Instead, she's basically back where she started, except I guess, more powerful, and more vengeful.

I know I chirp the writer's approach to Carol, and taking the very first opportunity to place her back in the cosmic pantheon definitely plays into some negative conceptions I've got about that. I promise, I really am all for more multidimensional, well-rounded and action-ready female characters, but Carol here is something of an overcorrection when she becomes a blasty space goddess of hellfire. There's a balance to be struck, where she doesn't have to be it all and do it all to be a great character.

I also see parallels here with the other time the X-Men went into space and found one of their companions empowered with the primal forces of the universe. When Jean became Phoenix, the book went to great lengths to examine what might happen to the human psyche if presented with such a scenario. Here, although there is some melancholy, it seems a lot more lighthearted and blockbustery, as Binary dashes off to wage a one-woman war against the Brood, and we cheer (because the Brood are certifiably evil monsters, not innocent broccoli aliens) rather than ponder the dire implications of wielding the power of ultimate life and death in the palm of one's hand. It doesn't help that Claremont mined the aftermath of the Phoenix for years to really bring it home.

The X-Men comics definitely contain multitudes - they can absolutely be fun and kooky as well as deep and thinky and I'm usually one of the first to tout that as part of its charm. But it can at times be jarring to watch the series ping pong between the two with the very same material. I'm maybe the only person who looks at Binary and sees a funhouse mirror version of Phoenix, and I don't resent her for it, I'm just not ready for it yet.